


Thoughts They Cannot Defend

by Duck_Life



Category: Astonishing X-Men, X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Friendship/Love, Telepathy, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-06-14 08:17:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15384570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duck_Life/pseuds/Duck_Life
Summary: When Emma learns that Hank's keeping Banshee at Harvard, she goes to see him.





	Thoughts They Cannot Defend

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [With These Eyes Before](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3213005) by [Duck_Life](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duck_Life/pseuds/Duck_Life). 



When Emma Frost storms in the lab door, Hank actually flinches. “Where is he?” she demands, her cape sweeping behind her haphazardly as she scans the room. When she spots the cot propped against the opposite wall, she moves forward.

Hank jumps in front of her. “Emma, please, you need to understand—”

“No,  _ you _ need to understand, McCoy,” she practically snarls. “When he vanished from the lab the Uncanny Avengers were keeping him in I didn’t know  _ where _ he’d been taken. I thought I’d never see him again, and now you… what? You’ve been keeping him here at Harvard? As what, your fucking roommate?” 

“I’ve been trying to cure him of the Death Seed energy, which I promised you I’d do,” Hank says. “His condition remains largely unchanged, but I’m getting closer every day.”

“Let me see him.”

“How did you even know he was here?”

She scowls. “Alex talks.”

“Damn him,” Hank growls. Emma tries to shove her way past him, and again Hank stops her. “You need to understand, he’s not himself.”

“What’s that supposed to mean, not himself? He doesn’t look the same? The walls don’t rattle when he opens his mouth? It’s still him, Hank.”  She elbows him in the ribs,  _ hard _ , and finally manages to get around him. In a flash she’s across the lab and bent over the cot. 

Sean Cassidy lies there, eyes wide and manic. There’s some kind of muzzle fixed over his mouth. 

“Sean,” Emma breathes, gently brushing his hair out of his face. It annoys her to note that Hank’s right; his condition doesn’t seem to have changed much. His face looks gaunt and too pale. She can see the blue veins spider-webbing through his arms, like his skin is too thin, translucent. “Sean, hey, it’s me. It’s Emma. I’m here.” His eyes roam around wildly, not fixating on her. He doesn’t do anything to show recognition. Emma’s chest seizes up but she pretends she’s fine. “Come on, boyo,” she jokes, making fun of his accent. “I know you remember me. I was a pain in your ass for years, remember that?” 

When Sean finally meets her eyes, she almost wishes he hadn’t. He looks so goddamn sad. Sad, and empty, and lost. Just as frightened and confused as the gifted youngsters they used to teach together. 

“Hey,” she says, running her hand through his hair, smoothing out the tangles. She was never like this with him before the Death Seed, not really. They used to trade barbs and insults like a particularly intense game of table tennis. Oh, they were there for each other when it mattered, when it was important to back the other up. 

But never quite like this, never with Sean looking so fragile. He used to be so steady, just taking every batshit crazy thing that happened to them in Massachusetts and rolling with it. Now, he shifts around on the cot, that damn muzzle covering up half of his face. 

“Why’s he got that thing on his mouth?” Emma calls to Hank.

Hank tells her, “He has no control over his powers right now. Without the muzzle, he emits his sonic scream non-stop.” He sounds almost reluctant to give her the information, and Emma feels a burst of anger that Hank’s treating Sean like some science project, talking about him all clinically like they didn’t used to be good friends, teammates. Hank’s known him longer than she has, for Christ’s sake. 

“I could help him,” she muses. “I could inhibit his sonic scream, let him relax for a moment.” She leans close to him, almost so their foreheads are touching.  _ Sean _ , she addresses him telepathically,  _ would it be alright if I tamped down your powers? _

She watches him process the feeling of having another voice in his head, and then she watches him think through her question. Finally, he nods. 

Emma pushes into his mind just enough to suppress his mutant abilities. She doesn’t go too far, even though Sean’s is one of very few minds she usually feels welcome in. It’s been so battered by the Apocalypse Twins and the Death Seed by now, she doesn’t want to know what it’s like. 

When she’s satisfied that he won’t shatter every beaker in the room with his voice, she reaches around his neck and unlatches the muzzle, letting it fall off his face.

The thing is, Sean still screams.

He just does it without his powers, so it lacks the punch it usually carries. He screams weakly, at a normal human decibel, his voice hoarse and hollow. He screams like a man waking from a terrible nightmare, only he doesn’t stop. Like the nightmare just keeps going.

“Shh, it’s okay,” Emma says, her hand cupping the side of his face as she tries to soothe him. “You’re okay.” His hoarse shouting chokes off but he still looks just as distressed. “It’s all okay. Deep breaths, come on, with me.” She breathes in and out, exaggerating her breaths, trying to get him to follow her lead. “Better?”

Sean inhales, exhales. He shuts his eyes and when he opens them again, he looks a little bit calmer. “Emma,” he says, looking up at her like she just dragged him from a burning building. 

“Hi,” she says, squeezing his hand.

On the other side of the lab, Hank coughs. “I’ll just… be in the hall,” he says, ducking out to give them some privacy. 

Emma nudges Sean’s hip so she can sit on the edge of his cot, not letting go of his hand. “What are you doing here?” Sean says. 

“Well, hello to you too,” Emma says, giving him a wry look. “Alex Summers told me Henry was keeping you here.”

“Alex was here?” Sean says, looking around like Havok might still be in the lab, crouching behind a machine. “I’ve been… out of it for a while.”

“I kind of figured,” Emma says. “You… you look better, though.”

“Liar,” Sean says, making her smile. “ _ You _ look great. Ye cut your hair.” He reaches up and tugs on a lock of it. “I like it. Reminds me of back then.”

“Yeah, well, speaking of back then,” Emma says, crossing her legs and leaning further onto to the bed, “Jubilation isn’t a vampire anymore. She’s thrilled. Oh, and I think she and Jono are together.” This is what she’s good at— sharing X-gossip. 

Sean lights up. “ _ Our _ Jono? With Jubilee? I… I can’t see it.”

“Yeah, I don’t really get it either,” Emma laughs. “I know last time I talked to you, Monet was being controlled by her asshole brother again. But she’s okay now, she’s back to herself again.”

“There was a wedding,” Sean says, sifting through his hazy memories. “Someone… Kitty and Peter. Is that still on?”

Emma snorts. “I was invited— possibly as a joke. I didn’t go, but I wish I had.”

“Beautiful wedding, eh?”

“No, not at all,” Emma says, grinning. Part of her feels bad for the unhappy couple, but more of her just adores the drama of it all. “Katherine left Colossus at the altar. Oh, but Gambit and Rogue took advantage of the free wedding hall and tied the knot.”

“Jesus… no wedding like an X-Men wedding, is there?”

“No,” Emma agrees with him, “no, there certainly isn’t.” She sighs, trying to think of more things to tell him. “Jamie Madrox is alive again. I think.” 

“Good for him,” Sean says, still clutching her hand, playing idly with her fingers. There’s more color in his face now, and his eyes look more present. Already, he’s so different from the freaked-out man he was when she arrived. “Ye know, I didn’t want t’die.”

She frowns, her forehead creasing. “I know.”

“When the Apocalypse Twins brought me back,” he starts, and she’s surprised. This is something he never talks about, something she doesn’t ask about. “I was just glad t’be back. DIdn’t care how, didn’t care why. Crazy thing is, I’m still glad. Despite everything, I’m still glad I’m alive.” 

He always manages to say things like this that hit her, that make her well up and spill over with emotion. She’s always kind of hated him for that. (She’s always kind of loved him for that.) “I’m glad too,” she says, raising a hand to her face under the guise of tucking her hair behind her ear so she can wipe her eyes. “I, um. I’ll tell Terry you’re here, I can bring her to come visit. Or, or she can come herself. Whatever you want.”

“Thank you,” he says. 

Emma shrugs. “And… and you don’t have to stay here with Henry if you don’t want. You can come stay with me, I have an apartment… or, you know, wherever you want to stay. I’m sure the X-Men would welcome you at the mansion. It’s in Central Park now.” 

“Thank you,” Sean says again. “But whatever Hank’s been doing t’me to cure me o’ the Death Seed crud, I think it’s working. Probably best for me t’stay here with him for now.” 

“Right, of course,” Emma says, feeling stupid for the surge of longing she feels for those years when they lived together in Massachusetts, sipping tea by the fire, watching the kids tackling each other outside, leaving passive-aggressive Post-it notes all over the fridge. She suddenly realizes Sean is smiling at her. “What is it?”

“Do ye remember when we used to do the crossword puzzles on Sunday mornings?” he says, surprising her. It’s almost like  _ he’s _ the one reading  _ her _ mind. 

“Of course.”

“And ye were so good at the clues about musicals and famous directors,” Sean recalls. “But ye didn’t know jack squat about the lowbrow stuff. Or anything fun, really. No cartoons. I remember this one clue, it said ‘Cartoon chicken Foghorn blank.’ Seven letters, starting with L. You remember what you guessed?”

Emma stares at him. “No, no I don’t.”

“Lockjaw!” he says, grinning. “Foghorn Lockjaw!”

She scrunches up her face, annoyed. “Well, what was it supposed to be?”

“Foghorn Leghorn!” he caws. “Oh, man. That’s the day I realized I was smarter than you,” he jokes.

“You’re not smarter than me.”

“No?” Sean says. “I was smart enough to die and stay out o’ all that Schism bullshit.” 

She has to laugh at that. “I missed you,” she says, finally giving in and hugging him. He hugs her back, his hand coming up to smooth her hair down. 

“Missed you too, luv,” he says, and for a moment it’s like they’re back in Massachusetts, like no one ever died and no one ever changed and no one ever took on anything they couldn’t handle. For a moment, they don’t have to be the White Queen and Banshee, and they don’t have to be X-Men or enemies or even lovers. 

For a moment, they just get to be themselves again. 


End file.
